


perchance to dream

by orphan_account



Category: Original Work
Genre: Apocalypse, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Other, Post-Apocalypse, Sleep, Suicide Attempt, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 06:05:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sun still shines and the wind still blows. The ocean still licks at the edges of the beach. But the world has ended. All that’s left is you and me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	perchance to dream

_"To die: to sleep; to sleep: perchance to dream."_  
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet

—————————————

The world ends on a Friday night.

It doesn’t end in fire, or in ice. It doesn’t end with nuclear bombings or pandemics or the undead.

Somehow, somewhere, a light just gets snuffed out.

The sun still shines and the wind still blows. The ocean still licks at the edges of the beach. But the world has ended.

All that’s left is you and me.

—————————————

”It’s like we just got left behind or something.”

We’re walking down the street that you used to live on. Your house is still there, and so are all the other houses. Your family is gone.

My family is gone, too. And my dog. Strangely, I think I’m most upset about my dog. I mean, humans are messed up, and maybe the world deserved to end. But a dog never did a bad thing. Certainly not my dog. Never.

You and I walk past my house, right at the end of the street that we both live on. Lived on.

”Don’t you think?” you prompt me. I’m sorry. I got lost in my own thoughts for a bit there.

”Yeah,” I reply a little late.

—————————————

We don’t sleep anymore. That must be a side-effect of the whole end-of-the-world thing.

I suppose I should mention that we sure _wish_ we could sleep. We’re bone-tired. We still lie down when it gets dark, cover ourselves in blankets and pillows and close our eyes.

Like I said, we don’t sleep. But sometimes we spend a couple of hours in complete silence, just lying there, waiting for something to come. Either for sleep to surround us, or for the end of the world to catch up to us. I honestly wouldn’t mind either one.

—————————————

I suppose one good thing that came out of all of this was that you and I could now walk to any place we wanted to go. We walk for days on end, like a road trip without the cars. The cars don’t work anymore, of course.

We walk for days without having to worry about sleep, or food. We don’t eat anymore, either.

You always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, so that’s where we are heading to now.

”My parents were gonna take me, you know. It was gonna be my spring break trip.” I pretend not to notice as your voice wobbles a bit at the end of that sentence.

”Think about it this way,” I say to you. “Now we can get drunk, and your parents won’t be around to stop us.” You laugh, so I continue. “We can run around at the bottom of the Grand Canyon drunk. It’ll be great. Just wait.”

—————————————

We don’t get drunk, because drinking just makes us throw up immediately, but we do run around at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

I can see you running around and hooting, a half-empty beer bottle in your hand. You took your shirt off because it’s so hot down here. We’re both past the point of protecting our modesty.

This is the first time I notice that you and I are wasting away. So much exercise, with no food and no sleep — I can count your ribs and the bumps of your spine. Your skin is pale and you’ve got dark circles like bruises under your eyes.

You’re screaming something now, walking in circles, looking up at the sky, waving your arms this way and that.

”This is _it_?” you scream. “This is your Grand Canyon? What a joke!” You throw your bottle and it smashes against the side of the cliff. It makes me jump.

”Hey, guess what, Mom, Dad?” you scream. “It’s a good thing you’re not here, because the Grand Canyon _sucks_!”

This is the first time you’ve gotten so emotional since we woke up on that strange Saturday morning. I learned that morning that it’s best to just allow you to do what you’re doing.

”I can’t believe it! What a fucking _joke_!”

—————————————

I don’t remember anything that happened, if anything happened. If there was anything to remember.

Neither do you. We just went to bed on Friday night, completely normal, and then we woke up Saturday morning and everyone — even my dog — was gone.

No power plant workers meant no electricity, so that was all gone. I never knew how quiet the world was without the constant hum of electricity in the background.

We were having a sleepover. You woke me up with a pillow to the face. You were crying. You said your mom was gone and you didn’t know where she was. Your phone wasn’t working. You had already tried mine, and it wasn’t working, either. You knocked on your neighbor’s door to ask to use their phone but no one answered. You knocked on your other neighbor’s door. No one answered.

—————————————

We get used to being alone. It’s not so hard, after a while.

I miss people, sure. But at least I have you.

—————————————

”What if…” I trail off.

”What if what?”

”No, it’s stupid.”

”Oh, for the love of—”

”What if you and me are supposed to be, like, the next Adam and Eve?”

You give me a reproachful look. “You gotta be kidding me.”

I huff in annoyance. “Well, how else do you explain all of this?” I say, gesturing vaguely. “We’re the only two people on Earth, to our knowledge. I mean, what if…”

We’re silent for a moment, and then you snicker and say, “This is the worst flirting in the history of the world.”

I’m not trying to flirt. Really. I just want to know what it all _means_.

”Yeah,” I reply a little late.

I close my eyes. It’s been a month and we’re back at your house again. We’re in your room, in sleeping bags on the floor, where we left them on that Saturday morning.

I screw my eyes shut tighter, begging for sleep.

—————————————

You’ve been drilling me with questions for the past two hours: my childhood, my family, my favorite subject in school, my favorite color. You know the answers to half the questions, of course, but we’re running out of things to talk about by now.

It’s been two and a half months.

—————————————

”Do you want to die?”

We’re in New York City, someplace I always wanted to go. We’d been to the Grand Canyon, so we figured it was time for me to get disappointed by my dreams.

None of the neon signs and advertisements were working. There weren’t any people. The streets were backed up with empty, dead cars, because not even the end of the world can do anything to big city traffic.

”What, in general? I thought we were finished with twenty questions,” I say.

”No, I mean, like, right now,” you say.

”Do I want to die?”

”Yeah.”

”I don’t… think so.” I rack my brains. It’s something I hadn’t thought about for a while.

Part of me, after the first week or so, simply assumed that you and I had officially become immortal, seeing as we had survived what appeared to be the apocalypse and we no longer ate or slept. I just thought death was officially off the table.

You grab my hand and pull me into the nearest building. We walk up ten, fifteen, twenty flights of stairs, and eventually we end up in some hotel room, fancier than I’ve ever stayed in.

Now, we’re on the little balcony that overlooks the street. It doesn’t even look like New York City, and it certainly doesn’t sound like it. Or at least, that’s what I assume. I’d never been here until after the world ended.

You grab my hand again, and you say it again: “Do you want to die?”

I look at you, and you look at me, and we both look at the ground so far beneath us. Three months ago, that sidewalk would have been filled with gruff New Yorkers running late for work.

In a few minutes, that sidewalk will have our dead bodies on it.

”Any last words?” I ask you quietly.

You ponder for a minute, trying to figure out how to end this, what to say, to me, to yourself, to — if He exists — God.

”Um…” you start. You turn to look at me, our hands pulling apart as you do. “Well. I’m glad that I survived the end of the world with you, of all people. I mean, I’m glad it wasn’t like, my grandpa, or someone like that.”

A tiny laugh escapes my throat. Your grandfather was a Nazi.

”What about you?” you ask me. “Any last words?”

I ponder for a minute, trying to figure out how to end this, what to say, to you, to myself, to — if He exists — God.

”Nope,” I whisper, taking your hand again. We both take deep breaths. “Ready?” I ask.

You swallow audibly. “Ready.”

And we jump.

—————————————

I think I watch too many movies and read too many books, because I was expecting to say something cliche here, like ‘the fall seemed to last an eternity’ or ‘everything seemed to slow down’, when in reality it lasted a couple seconds and was too fast for me to even fully register what was going on.

We hit the ground and I feel it. Oh, God, I _feel_ it, it hurts so bad, oh my God, everything hurts so much and I look to you and I know you feel it too. We shouldn’t be alive but we are, we’re still alive.

I’m groaning and possibly crying. You’re screaming again, because that’s what you do.

“No! _No_!”

We were supposed to have died.

We should be _dead_.

—————————————

For a week or so, we don’t really talk much. We get some bikes and ride them to Florida, occasionally stopping at interesting places.

We don’t talk about dying anymore.

—————————————

“Are we going to live forever?” you ask me one day.

“Nobody lives forever,” I answer automatically.

We haven’t slept or eaten in four months. Everyone else is gone, and we still don’t know how, or why, or why we’re not. We’ve tried to kill ourselves and we can’t. But nobody lives forever. It’s impossible. Nobody lives forever.

I look at you, expecting an emotional outburst of some kind. We’re sitting on a park bench somewhere in Louisiana, watching the tree branches blow around in the wind, listening to the birds. Family pets are all gone, but not wild animals. I don’t know why. I still miss my dog.

You sigh and look around, at me, at the sky, at your hands.

“Well,” you say eventually, quietly. I expect you to continue, but you simply get up and walk over to the nearest tree and begin to climb it. You hang upside down off of the branch lowest to the ground, your long hair gathering dirt at the ends as it brushes the earth.

—————————————

I don’t know how it happened, but you fell asleep.

We were in someone’s mansion and we found the fanciest bedroom in the whole house and hung out in there for a while. Eventually, as it always does, our conversation reached a lull and I went upstairs to look around some more.

When I came back downstairs, you were lying on the bed, not moving. I called your name because I wanted to show you this old-fashioned popcorn machine that I found in the attic that I thought you might like, and you didn’t respond. I called your name again.

I started to panic. What if you were dead? What if it was just me now? What if I had to spend eternity alone? I shouted your name and grabbed your arm desperately. God, it was so _thin_. You startled awake and half-shouted “What? What?” in alarm.

We both looked at each other for a very long time as understanding slowly dawned on us.

“You… you were…” I stammered, my hands and voice shaking.

“Asleep. I was asleep,” you said in a disbelieving voice. You cleared your throat, and said more loudly, “I fell asleep.”

Now, we’re sitting in the attic leaning against the popcorn machine. It reminds me of the night that everything happened. We were watching a movie and eating popcorn at your house. It was _House of Wax_. I love horror movies. You love popcorn.

“How did that even happen?” you whisper.

“I have no idea,” I whisper.

I’m scared.

—————————————

You’re asleep again. I keep checking you to make sure you’re breathing and your heart is beating, and I keep waking you up to make sure you still can.

I’m so tired. I want to fall asleep too.

—————————————

You’re going to sleep more often now. It’s been about three weeks since the first time, and now you’re sleeping through nights, even into the day. As for me, I still lie awake, staring at the ceiling while you snore quietly. I still check for a breath and a pulse. I still wake you up periodically.

I’m still tired. Strangely, so are you. In fact, you’re more tired than I am, despite the sleep you’re getting. It’s like when you take a nap in the middle of the day and when you wake up you’re even more fatigued than you were when you went to sleep. That’s what it’s like for you; for me, it’s more like when you stay up all night studying for a really hard test, except ‘all night’ lasts five and a half months.

We’re in Mexico now, because it’s warmer, and winter is coming. By the time it’s here, you’ll probably be able to hibernate, at the rate you’re going.

I’m jealous, and you know it. You’re able to sleep now, and I’m not, and I desperately want to. I’ll never say to you that I’m jealous. But I am. Besides, we both know it.

More than anything, though, really, I’m happy for you. You’re getting more exhausted by the day and we aren’t really moving anymore now that we’ve taken root in Mexico, but you missed sleep. Even if it still leaves you feeling tired, you missed it. And I’m glad you have it back.

—————————————

“Hey, come look at this!” I call out. There’s a jackrabbit in the road. You had said to me once that you always wanted to see one up close because the ears made you laugh, and you wanted to see how fast they could go.

No answer. You must be sleeping. Again. “Come on, there’s a jackrabbit in the road!” Sure enough, I find you lying on the small couch in the house that we’re staying in, sleeping. It doesn’t shock me anymore, how thin you’ve become, how thin we’ve both become.

I grab your arm and shake it, like I always do, calling your name, like I always do.

“You said you wanted to see a jackrabbit, so there it is. Come on,” I urge your sleeping form. I grab your arm and shake it and call your name again.

“Come on, there’s a jackrabbit in the road and it’s got huge ears. It’s funny. There’s a jackrabbit in the road. Get up. It’s time to get up now. Please. There’s a jackrabbit — oh, God. Come _on_. Get up! _Please_!”

I slap you in the face and quickly withdraw my hand, scared I’ve hurt you. You’re not waking up. You’re breathing, your heart is beating, but you’re not waking up.

I go outside and dry-heave, feeling like I should be throwing up but lacking the stomach contents to do so. The jackrabbit is gone now.

—————————————

It’s been four days. You haven’t woken up yet. I tried jumping off the highest building I could find yesterday but it didn’t work. You haven’t woken up yet.

—————————————

I’m starting to fall asleep now. Sometimes, I’ll be walking somewhere in the middle of the day and it just hits me, and when I wake up it’s dark and I’m lying in the middle of the road.

Other times, it happens much the same way it used to, before all of this: I get into a bed after the sun goes down and I drift off to sleep. The way it _should_ happen.

I’m getting more and more tired, just like you did.

You still haven’t woken up.

—————————————

I thought I’d gotten used to being alone.

I thought I was past needing the company of others.

Turns out I’d just gotten used to being with you.

I miss you. I’m all alone now.

—————————————

It’s been two and a half weeks. You haven’t woken up. I spend all night and half the day sleeping, now. When I am awake, I’m exhausted. I tried jumping off the building again the other day. It still didn’t work. You’re still asleep. I still check you as often as I can.

—————————————

I gathered the energy to move you from the couch to the actual bed. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to do that until now. It tired me out so much I immediately fell into the bed right next to you.

—————————————

A week later, I’m lying in bed next to you again when you wake up.

I was trying really hard to fall asleep, because I was so tired — both physically and emotionally — that I felt like I was going to cry. Until I heard something I hadn’t heard in weeks:

You, saying my name. Your voice is so gravelly from sleep, it’s almost unrecognizable. Almost.

I turn to you, and your eyes are open. I think I must be hallucinating, which _really_ makes me want to cry. You blink at me, as if you’re opening your eyes for the first time in a month, because you are. You say my name again, this time with a question mark at the end. You look sort of panicky, perhaps because I do, too.

I don’t know what to say, or do. You’re awake. You haven’t been awake for weeks.

“You’re awake,” I whisper in awe. “You haven’t been awake for weeks.”

Your eyes widen. “What?” you whisper. I don’t know why we’re whispering. I think I’m afraid that if I’m too loud, I’ll wake myself up from a dream. I haven’t had a dream since the world ended, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything.

“I’ve been out for… weeks?” you croak, then clear your throat, shaking me from my thoughts.

“Yeah. I’ve started to sleep, too. That’s what I was… trying to do. Just a minute ago.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“No, I’d… rather talk to you.” I clear my throat. “Like I said. Weeks.”

“Oh.”

Despite this exchange, we spend the next fifteen minutes or so in total silence. Maybe it was actually just a minute or two; I don’t know. Our perception of time has been completely warped, at this point, by everything that’s happened.

Your eyelids are drooping. I say your name over and over, trying to keep you awake.

“There was a jackrabbit. It was — it was like a month ago,” I stammer, tears threatening my eyes again. “You missed it. That’s when I found you asleep. I kept trying to tell you there was a jackrabbit in the road because you said you wanted to see one and you just wouldn’t wake up.” My voice is trembling.

“Oh. I’m sorry,” you say again.

I yawn loudly. “I’m tired,” I complain.

“Please don’t fall asleep,” you beg, though your own tiredness is evident. “I don’t… what if you never wake up?”

“Don’t fall asleep,” I say to you, though I’m closing my eyes.

“Remember the Grand Canyon?” you mumble.

“Yeah. You were so mad.”

“Remember when we tried to kill ourselves?”

“Yeah,” I say. “When you weren’t waking up all that time I kept trying it again. It worked about as well as it did the first time.”

You’re not sure what to say to that, and I feel bad about bringing it up and making you uncomfortable.

“Remember _House of Wax_?” I yawn.

“That movie sucked.”

“You’re just a baby.”

It’s still light outside. The sunlight is streaming through the half-closed shades on the inside of the window. It’s nice and dark when I close my eyes, though.

“Don’t fall asleep,” I order you.

“Okay.” I open one eye and look over. Yours are closed. I close mine again.

After a few minutes — maybe just one, maybe over twenty — I feel your hand on my arm. I hear you calling my name. But those things are so far away. Your voice sounds like we’re underwater. Your hand feels softer than a tissue. It’s nice and dark with my eyes closed.

—————————————


End file.
